1. Field of the Invention
Applicant""s invention relates to methods for manufacturing ear tags for the cattle industry and similar applications.
2. Background Information
The United States Beef Industry annually markets approximately 24 million animals to supply both domestic and foreign demand for safe, high quality beef. These animals are fed in thousands of confinement feeding operations (xe2x80x9cfeed lotsxe2x80x9d) scattered across the country. While many of these operations are small (less than 4000 head) a vast majority (over 75%) of cattle sold pass through larger commercial operations (over 4000 head).
These larger facilities are characterized by multiple owners of the cattle throughout the feed lot(s), which mixture creates a need for identification of cattle, or groups of cattle, in a quick and easily distinguished manner. The plastic ear-tag industry arose to meet such needs.
Historically, cattle groups have been rather simply distinguished either by color-coding with ear-tags or more commonly by hot-stamping pen or lot numbers on an ear-tag prior to attaching the tag to an animal. The hot-stamp machines are typically provided by the tag manufacturer to the feed lot for use on-site.
Quality initiatives and more focused management within the Beef Industry have led to the practice of individually identifying animals, even within ownership groupings. To meet this trend, tag manufactures have, at their factories, been sequentially numbering ear tags with hot-stamping machines for their customers. This practice has witnessed exponential growth since the early 1990""s. Continued growth in this field is forecast and is an almost certainty as Beef producers continue to seek improvement in animal performance, genetic makeup of their herds, source verification, and management of their business. While striving for these objectives, producers must provide the public with assurance as to the safety and quality of their end product. This necessitates user friendly, economical, humane and visible identification. The sequentially numbered ear-tag adequately fills this role.
Existing, available sequential ear tag numbering machines are large, complex and expensive, all of which attributes have precluded their use xe2x80x9cin the fieldxe2x80x9d. Therefore, feed lots currently rely on custom printing of their sequential tags. This causes extra management and costs due to customization, ordering, lead times, and inventory management. There exists a long felt, but unsatisfied need to be able to produce custom ear tags at the feed lot and dispense with the need for pre-made ear-tags.
It is an object of the invention to provide an improved business method for supplying printed plastic ear tags for livestock identification and management to end users.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method for producing on-site, on-demand, individually customized plastic identification tags, principally for use by livestock management facilities.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a system and related method for producing plastic identification tags for use in livestock management.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a system and related method for producing plastic identification tags for use in livestock management, which system, by providing on-site, on-demand production of customizable tags, eliminates lead time in acquiring tags needed for livestock identification operations.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a system and related method for producing plastic identification tags for use in livestock management, which system, by providing on-site, on-demand production of customizable tags, substantially eliminates waste caused by over-ordering of factory-produced tags, as well as shortages caused by under-ordering.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a system and related method for producing plastic identification tags for use in livestock management, which system, by providing on-site, on-demand production of customizable tags, produced through use of software capable of generating essentially unlimited combinations of alpha-numeric and graphical indicia, allows for users to easily customize information, as well as depict multiple, variable information fields on any given identification tag.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a system and related method for producing plastic identification tags for use in livestock management, which system, by providing on-site, on-demand production of customizable tags, substantially reduces costs to end-users of obtaining customized, individually variable ear tags for livestock management purposes.
In satisfaction of these and related objectives, Applicant""s present invention provides a method for providing end-users with, and with the ability to produce, customized, individually variable plastic tags for use in livestock management operations. The present method eliminates the need for factory production of customized ear tags (with the inherently required order lead time), reduces the likelihood of waste through over-ordering and the inconvenience of shortages, and provides near infinite flexibility in selecting the indicia which will appear on any given ear tag or batch of ear tags. The present method will provide end-users with greater flexibility, more useful end products, all at potential cost savings through resulting efficiencies.
Despite the obvious impetus for providing some method by which individually customized ear tags may be produced on-site and on-demand at feed lot operations, the solution (as provided by the method of the present invention) has not been obvious and is nowhere to be found in the livestock industry.
For the first time, the present inventors have assembled the necessary components and methodology to permit on-site, on-demand production of large or small numbers of identification tags for cattle, each one of which can be individually customized within the limits of the computer software that controls that which is printed on the tag (sequential numbers, bar codes, owner logos, distinguishing routing information, dates of arrival or intended departure, veterinary information, and so on).
Little of the individual components of the present system and methods are new, but the assemblage of elements and the methods of business which are achievable through their collective use represent highly beneficial, long-needed solutions to old and growing problems.